The Pace of War
by Sakon76
Summary: [G1] War is like an endless waltz. But the faster things go, the harder they stop. Written for the ProwlxJazz livejournal community's October challenge 'A Scream in the Night or Cry for Help' prompt.


**The Pace of War**  
by K. Stonham  
released 27th October 2007

War had its own pace. There were the long, boring doldrums of rest and recharge, of waiting for the 'Cons to make their next move, of meetings and plannings and calculating out resources. There were the hectic moments of roll-out panic, when word of an attack came, when a rescue was mounted, when an offensive was begun. There were the battles themselves, fluid like dances as he dodged laser blasts from ground troops and aerial attack from seekers and coneheads and prayed that neither he nor anyone he knew ended up in Megatron's hands... or Soundwave's. And then there were Jazz's favorites, the intense waiting periods and subtle moves that marked infiltrations, information extractions, and the delicate art of sabotage. Those were his favorites because he was in charge of his own actions and if he got killed it would be only because of his own screw-ups. 

He didn't screw up.

Still, he knew he was fighting a losing war. The Autobots had to bleed for every scrap of territory, every erg of energon they could win or steal. And he knew they were on the right side--what those 'Cons wanted to do just wasn't _moral_, slag it!--but sometimes he wondered if Primus really was dead the way some 'bots held, because the days were dark and hope dim. He tried not to think about it--leave that to 'bots better suited to it, he figured--and concentrated on keeping his spirits up and keeping up the spirits of those around him. He laughed, he joked, he sang. He tried to remind them what they were fighting for. He didn't always succeed, but he figured every little bit helped.

Then, finally, the higher-ups (meaning Prime, Prowl, Elita, Magnus and a few others) admitted that it wasn't enough. There was no way an army could win a war if it was starving to death. And Cybertron no longer had enough energy to sustain the combatants in her civil war.

It felt a little like what the 'Cons proposed, Jazz thought to himself when he heard of it. To go to another world and take their energy... It gave him the shudders. He just had to have faith, he told himself, that what came into his processors wasn't what Prime had in mind.

He wondered what the army had that it could use to barter for those desperately needed supplies. What skills he might be able to trade for the energy that could tip the war in his side's favor. When Prowl announced that the mission would be volunteers only, he hesitated a minute after hearing Wheeljack had built the ship, but after being assured that Hoist had approved all designs and supervised the construction, he threw his name in the hat.

He didn't expect he'd actually be selected.

He didn't expect to be named helmsman.

Or 3IC.

No pressure, he thought, grimly amused, as he studied the ship's specs and tried to get a pre-launch feel for her handling. No, no pressure at all.

The few Ops 'bots Jazz knew who weren't out on assignment or in the medbay being rebuilt threw a farewell party for him and the two others going on the Ark. He hadn't worked much with the two 'bots who'd be under him (fancy-schmancy title of "Head of Special Operations, Ark Division," he thought; woo-hoo!), but he'd read their dossiers and was impressed. He sensed that he'd have stories to trade with Mirage and Bumblebee. And someone, somehow, had managed to scrounge up some high-grade, and it had been so long since _any_ of them had had it that they barely remembered what it tasted like. Jazz only sipped, too well aware that he'd need his reflexes sharp to be dodging all the weaponry the 'Cons would no doubt be launching at the Ark. But still... it reminded him of better times. He let his eyes wander around the party, his fellow spies, his fellow saboteurs, and smiled.

Of course, no one knew if the expedition would be a success or not, or even if any of them would ever see one another again, so the final toast of the night, before they all wandered off to their berths for recharge, alone or with companionship, or to report in for duty, was the oldest, the most meaningful: "Until all are one!"

Even 'bots who'd given up on Primus wanted to believe in that.

* * *

The ship launched like a dream and steered like one too. Jazz decided that he'd have to take back everything he'd thought, apologize to Wheeljack for doubting him, and congratulate Hoist on his construction work.

They ended up in a solar system far off the usual interstellar trade routes, one Prowl and others had calculated as a likely candidate. They were maneuvering their way through the asteroid field between the fourth and fifth planets when the Decepticons attacked. And between the weapons fire being slung around the bridge and the interstellar turbulence, Jazz knew, they were all so, so screwed.

He barely registered the blue planet seeming to careen up at the ship before everything went black and he offlined, wondering if it was his fault.

* * *

Time came back online with a gasp as he stared up at the bridge's compromised ceiling, riddled with rock.

He sat up, pressing a hand to his head, feeling muzzy as he looked around. 'Bots were strewn everywhere, some whole, others in pieces, only a few moving around, checking the others. "Are you all right, Jazz?" a soft, deep voice asked, and he looked up into the optics of Optimus Prime.

"Fine, Prime," Jazz replied. "What's going on?"

"We crashed on the third planet," he replied, helping Jazz to stand. "According to Teletran, we've all been offline for over four million of the local solar orbits."

"And the Decepticons?" Jazz asked hopefully.

Prime shook his head. "Reactivated before us," he replied.

"And probably wreaking havoc on the planetary eco-system and collecting energon as we speak," Ratchet opined. He looked up at the leader. "Prime, Red Alert needs more parts and repairs than Teletran can provide. I'll have to put him in one of the stasis bays."

Optimus nodded. "Do what you can for those immediately repairable," he instructed. "We'll fix everyone else as soon as we can."

"Well," Prowl said, coming forward with datapad in hand, "we're down two-thirds of our crew, the Ark is thoroughly buried in the mountain, and it will take months of work to make it space-worthy again."

"And the good news?" Optimus inquired.

"This planet is overflowing with easily harvestable sources of renewable energy, has developed a dominant sentient species, and their communications network has not yet reported any incidents easily recognizable as Decepticon attacks," Prowl reported with a note of satisfaction.

"Hate to say it, but I doubt that's going to last long," Jazz said. "Guess they're not aware of us yet, either, then. Any chance they've had off-planet contact?" he inquired.

Prowl shook his head in the negative. "They're only just beginning to develop space flight technology," he said. The hint of a smile crept into his expression. "They're organic," he reported, "and they're _tiny_."

* * *

Tiny but brave, Jazz ended up amending Prowl's report less than a day later. And they had a definite sense of style, he thought, inordinately pleased with the sleek lines and styling of his camouflage mode. They weren't as stupid as one might expect from creatures with organic brains, either. The boy learned to read their language quickly enough, even if the audials of it weren't really intended for organics to hear or duplicate. And his father rapidly picked up Cybertronian engineering, much to Ratchet's gratification.

Still, especially with the way they were trapped on Earth for at least a while, with all interstellar communications down, there was no way of knowing how the war had gone back home, who was even alive... or if the war had consumed the planet itself long, long ago. It was an invisible strain on all of them.

But things eventually fell into a pattern again, though this one was different. This time, it felt like the Autobots had the upper hand. It helped that the humans had mostly quickly decided that Megatron and his Decepticons were "persona non grata" and sided with the Autobots, but more than that... there was suddenly time again, and energy.

Jazz had almost forgotten what it felt like to live in a relatively safe place, to have enough energon to drink, to have downtime that was _actually_ downtime. To be able to listen to music without fear of being overheard, to be able to walk freely under the sky without fearing attack from above...

It seemed like there were so many things that he'd forgotten, that all of them had forgotten.

Things the humans took for granted.

He wasn't the only one who felt that way, Jazz realized. Hound and Trailbreaker dove straight into exploring the glories of Earth's terrain; Mirage and Bumblebee, ever adaptable, immersed themselves in studying human culture. Wheeljack, of course, was happiest (and probably safest) in the reinforced walls of his lab, but of all 'bots, Prowl actually surprised Jazz the most when he took up human games of strategy and began inviting others around the Ark to play matches with him.

Jazz suddenly realized that he knew nothing of who, or what, Prowl had been before the war. Actually spending time with the 'bot he'd always known only by rank and demeanor, Jazz discovered that the "pipe up his aft" 2IC, as the twins cheerfully described him, was actually... shy. And, off-duty, sweet. And had a wicked sense of humor.

Once, he would never have imagined voluntarily spending his free time with Prowl. He smirked, crumpled up that thought and threw it into a mental recycling bin.

Once, he decided, returning to their game, he would never have had the leisure to come to know who Prowl was.

* * *

Over the time that their war waged on Earth, before they finally managed to kick the Decepticons off their allies' planet, the Autobots subtly changed. The Ark crew became closer-knit, and though mostly the veterans of a war that they'd fought for millions of years on Cybertron, they became... harder. Stronger. The difference was not exactly quantifiable, but it definitely had something to do with the humans, Jazz privately thought. The small, squishy species had something they called guts, or moxy, or that Autobots called sheer bloody-minded stubbornness. They refused to give up, no matter how outclassed they were, and impressed by their defiance, the Autobots slowly became infected by that mindset as well.

They were close to winning the war, so close that Jazz could practically taste it as they chased Megatron and his lackeys back to Cybertron, and built strongholds on the moons. They had energon coming from Earth, allies to back them, and the mindset to win.

And he had Prowl.

That was almost as good as winning the war, all by itself. In fact, if he had the choice between having Prowl and eliminating all of Decepticon high command in one stroke, Jazz admitted to himself that he'd have a damn hard time making the choice... and might not be able to at all. Maybe he'd gotten spoiled over the course of a mere twenty-two Earth years, he thought as he settled onto the recharge bed, his partner already unconscious. He was accustomed now to feeling relatively safe, to being well-fed. He was used to having friends around him, to having the Decepticons off-balance. He was used to being loved, and in love.

It was a little like having everything, he thought, and didn't the humans have a word for that? A name for being on top of the world, right before their gods tumbled it all down around their ears...

* * *

"A little energon, and a lot of luck," Prime said. The shuttle run to Earth was nothing that any of them hadn't done a hundred times before, and the crew would be back before the second moon even peeked out from behind Cybertron. Jazz waved them all goodbye from the base's command deck just before the shuttle hopped into warp space, and signed off his shift a few minutes later for some downtime.

He tidied his and Prowl's quarters (the mess, he admitted, mostly his, and Prowl had been right to be bitching him out into picking it up) before going into recharge. If he was lucky, he thought with a smirk, Prowl would slip in beside him sometime in the night. Maybe he'd even remember to pick up that stack of CDs Blaster had said he'd been compiling for Jazz, and bring it back with him.

The last thing his optics rested on before they closed was the half-finished chess game that he and Prowl hadn't had time to complete.

* * *

Jazz woke with a scream not half an hour later, and sat up, fuel pump pounding in his chest. Something was wrong, he knew. Desperately wrong. A few wild glances around his quarters showed nothing out of place, no Laserbeak lurking in the rafters spying, and checking his comm line and messages brought up no disturbances either.

His gaze caught on the magnetic chessboard again, and he got up, slowly approaching it, not knowing why.

He touched a hand to the white queen, and thought of Prowl.

Unnerved, and superstitious, he took the queen from the board, and subspaced it. Knowing he wasn't going to get any more recharge, he headed back to the command deck to see if they needed him for anything, and to check if there were any incoming messages.

A few hours later a distress call came through from Autobot City and was cut off mid-transmission. Jazz's energon ran cold, and he'd never wanted anything more than he wanted more information. But he held the line, him and Cliffjumper, as Prime led the troops back to Earth--they absolutely could NOT let the Decepticons take Earth--and stayed and waited. He split the time between praying and fearing, and tried not to let any of it cross his expression. Cliffjumper didn't need to know that easy-going 3IC Jazz was worried.

Then something that looked like a planet but didn't act like it showed up in the suburbs of Cybertron and started _eating_ the moon, and all he could do was fire off a distress signal of his own toward Earth and the other moon, and he and Cliffjumper made a break for it, only to fail and have their shuttle consumed too.

Spike and Bumblebee didn't escape either, and somehow the four of them and a whole bunch of other 'bots, Autobots, Decepticons, Neutrals, all ended up in a sushi conveyor line heading toward what had to be the planet-critter's stomach. Jazz hadn't quite given up, but he was apologizing to Primus for everything he could remember ever having done that might have pissed the god off, when of all people Spike's kid showed up and saved them. (Wasn't Daniel supposed to be on Earth? Well, they'd obviously got the distress message and been able to send help, which meant the 'Cons there were routed and Prowl was probably--please, please, let him be--just injured and strapped to a berth in the medbay on Earth by either Ratchet or First Aid.)

It wasn't until later, much later, that he found Magnus and Blaster and got the story from them of what they'd found in the crashed shuttle.

It hit him in a way that not even word of Optimus' death and Hot Rod's ascension had, and he excused himself and found a quiet, private place away from all the celebrating going on.

He unsubspaced the white queen and turned it over in his hands.

They'd won the war.

They'd defeated Unicron.

But somehow the taste of victory was so hollow, and energon like ashes in his throat.

Jazz bowed his head and, laughing softly, began to cry.

"Prowl..." he whispered.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_The sucky thing about liking this pairing? One or the other of them ends up dead._

_I've always been slightly intrigued by the fact that when they left Cybertron four million years ago, the Autobots were actually losing the war. There have been a lot of excellent stories written on the war itself, but I've yet to find one that deals with that particular aspect to my satisfaction. Because the Autobots were civilians who took up fighting in defense of a moral stance... they would have been starving, and afraid, and starting to lose hope at the point when the Ark was launched. Which really makes the surviving resistance movement on Cybertron all that much more impressive in their tenacity. But it occurs to me that after waking in 1984, it would have been a new world metaphorically as well as literally for the Ark Autobots._

_I also took the liberty of making Jazz a lot less higher ranked in the ops division back on Cybertron than is the usual view. It... ended up a little more interesting that way somehow. Because rather than viewing Prowl as fellow officer on a relatively equal ranking for a long time, he's always viewed Prowl as a superior officer and himself as a (skilled) grunt. The change of Jazz's rank leads to the possibility of other relationships changing as well._


End file.
